Now that Space Marine 40,000 is set in stone for the forseeable future, how do you Marine players feel? I ask because my local meta has become mirror matches of marines, or non marine players playing each other.

Now that smol marines are here to stay and further models and buffs are coming out, do you all have problems finding games? Again to touch on the "nobody plays against Marines except Marines" comment, this is across the board, except the highschool kid we have. This is before your smol marines where known not to be legened bound.

I see this becoming worse as time goes on, I know marines are not winning every tournament, but after looking at the obviously weaker Necron codex coming, are any of you experiencing the double edged sword of being the most powerful and common faction?

If we're all just playing Marines v. Marines anyway I'd rather be playing 30k.

Annoyed. This is one of the times when I'm really happy I invested in a Xenos army as a secondary.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If we're all just playing Marines v. Marines anyway I'd rather be playing 30k.

Seconded.
I’m playing Xenos this edition and I guess that I will never have problems finding a Marine opponent.

From the looks of leaked special rules from White Dwarf, it looks like Necrons will be one of the strongest codex's of 9th edition. An Ork list won 2nd place at a GT event so I would argue Orks are one of the top armies right now competitively.

In my local meta where I'm the most prominent Marine player due to lack of other armies to bring, people ask me regularely to play with them. This includes Eldar, Thousand Sons, Necrons, Tau, Chaos Daemons, Death Guard.

We are not super competitive, but don't bring unoptimised, non sensical stuff to the board either.

Most of us are in their 30s or 40s so would have the spare income to chase the meta, but nobody feels inclined to. And I'm glad that there is no arms race going on.

I plan to start a Xenos army (Wraith Eldar or Ynnari mixed with Harlequins) as soon as I'm done with painting my 2000pts. Purely because I like the looks and fluff, less because I can't find games or only have mirror matches.


Believe it or not, but our games are usually quite balanced. It feels like the internet is playing a different game than I do to be honest.

 charz wrote:
Now that Space Marine 40,000 is set in stone for the forseeable future, how do you Marine players feel? I ask because my local meta has become mirror matches of marines, or non marine players playing each other.

Now that smol marines are here to stay and further models and buffs are coming out, do you all have problems finding games? Again to touch on the "nobody plays against Marines except Marines" comment, this is across the board, except the highschool kid we have. This is before your smol marines where known not to be legened bound.

I see this becoming worse as time goes on, I know marines are not winning every tournament, but after looking at the obviously weaker Necron codex coming, are any of you experiencing the double edged sword of being the most powerful and common faction?

I ain't touching my Dark Angels this edition, but I'm most likely going to be playing my Death Guard until a CW or a Drukhari codex comes out.

/shrug

I used to play Ynnari because I thought (and still think) it is some of the best lore GW ever created, bringing Eldar firmly into the story of "current" 40K instead of being a faction all about stories from "way back when".

And I had to endure years of being called a Powergamer and whining about how Marines aren't winning tournaments.

So GW listened to the people, gutted Ynnari and made Marines OP, so I guess the people won and we all have the 40K that the players have demanded for years and years.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
/shrug

I used to play Ynnari because I thought (and still think) it is some of the best lore GW ever created, bringing Eldar firmly into the story of "current" 40K instead of being a faction all about stories from "way back when".

And I had to endure years of being called a Powergamer and whining about how Marines aren't winning tournaments.

So GW listened to the people, gutted Ynnari and made Marines OP, so I guess the people won and we all have the 40K that the players have demanded for years and years.

This basically. What will happen is they fail to quite tone the. Down gully enough probably and the result is in 18 months there's a 9.2 marine codex to rebalanced yet again. People will screech that it's too much too often while simultaneously somplaining about the existing book (like now).

Eventually GW will get fed up, hyper buff another faction beyond marines and suddenly they'll be forgotten by people like Ynnari as a passing phase.

Likewise to the OP I don't think it's fair to say the necron book is obviously weaker yet.

Where I played when marines 2.0 dropped it was the biggest single drop in attendance we'd ever seen. our club saw a long, slow drop down to only a few regular members ~10 at the end of 7th ed, and then between the launch of 8th with a few really successful escalation leagues and a change of management, we saw a huge uptick in the number of people showing each week.

Week four of the escalation league when we hit 1k points games, we actually had every single faction that at that point had a codex represented in the club on one day except for Imperial Knights and Dark Angels. All of them. 14 tables going at once, with probably 60 people involved just not turning up every week.

By the time the last supplement dropped and people had 4-5 games with them under their belts, people started avoiding playing marines, and we had one week where every initial post in the "play game this week" thread was requesting an opponent that wasn't marines, both marine players and non-marine players both. We dropped down to about 4-5 active tables each week, with about 15-20 active members by the time the pandemic lockdown started.

We have appeared to build in the number of active members since the pandemic began, we did a lot of virtual painting days, and it was a good way to connect with folks about something you were looking forward to. So we had a bunch of people get a ton of painting done, start those new projects they wanted to start, some of us decided our project would be trying to build a 2000 point army based around Gretchins, mistakes were made, still had fun.

Right now we are limited by people not wanting to come in in person for obvious reasons, and the fact that the stores game table capacity is 4 right now on a reservation basis. We play in a big old warehouse space, so they've just set up tables really far apart and the rule is "only one person moves forward to the board at a time, the other person stands back."

But, overall, it seems to be back up towards what I'd call "normal" levels of attention. The 4 reservable tables at the store fill up reliably each week, and I know other folks are playing games at home, so we probably have 6 or so tables going each week.

In terms of marine grumbling theres kind of a pendulum backswing now that you can see elsewhere. When people know they're up against marines with not-marines, they tend to bring their best, nastiest, most brutal list they'd bring to a tournament, without REALLY considering what their opponent's playstyle is, and we're casual enough that mostly that winds up being a fairly basic marine list setup vs something resembling what you might bring at a tournament.

The one I was actually guilty of recently was an opponent who told me "its gonna be a primaris gunline with a chapter master and a gunline setup" and I brought a list that featured a 20-block of Rubric Marines with Cult of Duplicity and Disc Ahriman. So yeah, I infiltrated them, got first turn, got Prescience on them, and shot twice killing 5 aggressors and 12 intercessors turn 1. My logic was "Well, my opponent has a big unit of dudes that can shoot twice, I don't feel too bad including this" and....yeah, it felt bad, one unit took out like 500pts turn 1.

So the saltiest folks at this point are the marine players who've had to play a lot of really optimized list setups in a meta already tailored for anti-marine stuff since over 50% of the playerbase is playing marines.

I’m irritated mainly from a hobby and tactical standpoint every time I think I’m almost done with building and painting up my army or making final changes and tweaks to the list some new curveball comes out that will change the game or the ability of my army. Plus my to build and paint pile keeps growing and some units that were gonna take priority get pushed back cause now I have to be competitive and follow the path set by GW when I really just wanna finish my other models.

People don't like playing against marines? Why, I don't have any problems finding opponents for my Night Lor.....*looks at OP* Ohhhh, you mean loyalist marines. Never mind. I'll see myself out.

One of the guys at the club got into the game last year and went Marines. He regrets that decision and is picking up a second army now.

It's not that he lacks tactical options, it's not that they are hard to play, it's not due to limited model ranges as none of that is true. The issue for him is that all his opponent's default lists are geared to fight Space Marines and they're all very experienced playing against them.

He won more games in 2 months after lending my Necrons than he did all year as Space Marines simply because my local meta doesn't have many who play Necrons so they weren't prepared for how durable they can be (they've played me of course but I haven't played Necrons that much compared to my Death Guard and Tyranids).

Thankfully with new releases and his choice of a silver tide, he's hopeful to have his new army assembled and painted in record time lol.

Annoyed. This is one of the times when I'm really happy I invested in a Xenos army as a secondary.

Ditto. I have a lot of secondary armies so I've been exploring those in depth.

And the statement "smol marines are here to stay" - heh ... shine on you crazy diamond!

None of the issues I state with Marines is intended to reflect negatively on the general character of Marine players. Primaris models *look* awesome - mostly - and I totally understand wanting to use them, and how much it sucks that one barely can without coming across as That Guy.

I myself have shelved any attempt to restart the corporate Ultramarines successors that gave me my namesake in 3rd edition, not until the dust settles, whether that's in a month when the codex drops, or - if the Marine codex 3.0 is as broken as it looks from the confessedly limited information we have - thirteen months when everyone else has their codexes and the game hopefully comes out to a better state of balance.

I'm absolutely sick of Marine releases; I don't want to see anything else come out for Marines for the next year. I want some serious damn nerfs in the codex (e.g. Remove Doctrines entirely) to have some hope that one day I'll be able to actually put my sapphire soldiers out on a table without feeling like I have to apologize for every unit's firing phase.

I'm going to be painting and modelling my dubstep-wielding Emperor's Children furries; possibly eventually my 3d-print concept for a Skaven/Admech mashup.

The games I'm playing are mostly TTS games in local, quite casual meta of half a dozen longtime friends, many of whom started playing 40K at the beginning of 9th. After some growing pains involving a Salamanders hipster, we have basically sworn off using Marines against one another until at least the Codex drop. Our games are fun and varied; we have people focusing on IG, Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and various flavors of Chaos, but we can switch basically as we feel like it.

 charz wrote:
Now that Space Marine 40,000 is set in stone for the forseeable future, how do you Marine players feel? I ask because my local meta has become mirror matches of marines, or non marine players playing each other.

Now that smol marines are here to stay and further models and buffs are coming out, do you all have problems finding games? Again to touch on the "nobody plays against Marines except Marines" comment, this is across the board, except the highschool kid we have. This is before your smol marines where known not to be legened bound.

I see this becoming worse as time goes on, I know marines are not winning every tournament, but after looking at the obviously weaker Necron codex coming, are any of you experiencing the double edged sword of being the most powerful and common faction?

Well, marines just kind of feel oppressive to face, even as a marine player.

For one, the fact that everything hits, everything wounds, and then AP is universally high feels like units have far more effect on target.

On the flip side, the stratagems like Transhuman Physiology and Duty Eternal and 3+ saves becoming 2+ with cover also make it feel like "that one unit" takes a lot more effort to kill.

And that's before getting into how good Marines are at manifesting aggression and board control in the form of invictors, incursors, and infiltrators, and the whole "there's a unit to counter that".


And like, as a Marine player in a Marine on Marine matchup I mentally know that it's going both ways, it still just feels very oppressive and overwhelming and like "well that's a crock of gak"

Right now, I'm mostly playing my Space Wolves and Grey Knights, and I think I will continue to do so for the near future. I'm going to get what I need to make sure my Guard are ready to go [and essentially already have everything I need for my Sisters, except Zephyrim because they're new, though I really want to completely replace my repentia since the new models are so much nicer], but like I don't even know how my Guard would and could exist and stand in this brave new marine-saturated world. Like, my Space Wolves just feel so much stronger.

As a Necron and Marine player, the core rules are as imbalanced as ever. I'm also expecting steady codex creep just like last time.

I've not exactly had a local game since covid so we'll see how it goes. I think it's too early to dismiss necrons. we dunno everything (there could be some goodies for crons and some nasty marine nerfs coming we dunno about.) assuming GW's plan is to bring people up to Marines now's not that bad a time for the change to happen.

I mean as it is we know when the Marine 'dex drops SOBs are getting a hell of a upgrade.

I play SW with no primaris, solid army overall but nothing gamebreaking and I have fair games with them. However as I refuse to play imperium vs imperium since when I started in 3rd edition I'll be focus entirely on orks at least untile the SW supplement drops as the meta here is already imperium heavy with AM, mech, sisters, custodes other than marines.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Well, marines just kind of feel oppressive to face, even as a marine player.

I've found them oppressive to play, even. All the rerolling gets really old. I like that a lot of the Tyranid bonuses I wind p using are simple +1s to hit. No rerolls, just a modifier.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Well, marines just kind of feel oppressive to face, even as a marine player.

I've found them oppressive to play, even. All the rerolling gets really old. I like that a lot of the Tyranid bonuses I wind p using are simple +1s to hit. No rerolls, just a modifier.

I know, right? It's almost cruel in the way it distributes then crushes hope. I roll a bunch of dice, I get a bunch of misses way out of statistical proportion, and ordinarily it'd be one of those WHAT IS THIS DICE?! wacky moments, but NOPE, Marines!

My Blood Angels only re roll 1's to hit, as do alot of HQ's units aura abilities in almost every codex in the game right now. It has already been revealed for 9th that the Chaper Master re rolls are going to cost more points instead of stratagem points, so GW has already nerfed it going into 9th to some extent. So no biggie imo. You can only fit so many units within range of the aura anyway. Gullyman still raises my eyebrows though, I think he should be rewritten so that he can only buff 3 units a turn, that would balance him out I think. Maybe cap the Chapter master at only being able to buff 2 units per turn? GW probably wont think of this though.

Since 9th edition it starts to feel like an uphill battle again (I don't play Salamanders or Iron Hands), but perhaps that's because I face a lot of Chaos lists. Yes, I know it's kind of modern to whine about marines, but truth is, they're far from being top dog atm.

Perhaps some local metas just haven't adjusted to the later PA books. Right now, I see chaos lists with AAA-units like Obliterators or Noise Marines that can't be targetted by me unless they are the nearest unit (Stratagem) and kill a significant chunk of my army each turn (Stratagems).

Yeah, yeah, Eradicators are OP, bla-bla, I get it. But they (and other SM units) can't be made untargettable and they can't shoot twice with a plethora of buffs. It's not like I'm frustrated about that, I like hard games. What I'm frustrated about is that lots of people seem to have missed what some (non SM-) factions can do nowadays and just go on whining and calling for nerfs.

You're basically just saying Alpha Legion is good, which was already the only way to really run CSM successfully.

For me, there is no meta since there are no games happening. It appears that there's a good chance at least the next set of codices are going to happen before I get a chance again. That said, I don't think marines meta is as known as much of Dakka believes it to be the case and is certainly not set in stone yet (or ever given CA/FAQ are probably going to still be a thing. I am going to mostly withhold comment until Codex: Space Marine 9th ed is out as there could be a good deal of curve balls up until that point. Even then, I have little doubt that it will be seen as overpowered. Which in the context of few updated codices for 9th ed will probably be true.

What I can comment on is being a player of a Primaris only army a little before 8th's C:SM 2.0 but mostly playing my army with C:SM 2.0. I never made use of Chapter Supplements as my custom Primaris army is an unknown chapter, and I didn't really feel like spending the money on any supplement. I felt that straight C:SM was plenty and many times still felt like a little too much. So after my first game with my Primaris, I never brought more than 90% of the agreed upon points.

It was hard to say at that point whether my Primaris were still too good or was a combination of low-skill floor/me actually study how I was going use them/they generally fit my play style. Not to mention I think after a couple of months of C:SM 2.0 there was a sort of boogyman element particularly toward Primaris marines. I will admit I won nearly all the games I played with my Primaris (about 10 games). Only losing playing my only ITC style mission (which I really wasn't interested in playing) to an Imperial Guard player whose guardsmen quickly screened out no man's land with Move, Move, Move and pushed forward with their armor and pummeled me with artillery.

For 9th, I am optimistic that as more and more codices are released for 9th space marines are going to look like less and less of a threat. I think there's still a good chance at very low end (novice) marines may still seem oppressive due to still having a low skill floor and perhaps being a faction that simply doesn't allow for tabling nor cookie cutter strategies. Well one can dream anyways.

When the pandemic lets up I am sure I will be able to use my Primaris as I always have. I do have to admit that with Indomitus, there definitely seems like a lot more Primaris are going to be at my FLGS. Which is surreal to me as when I had finished painting enough stuff to put together an army I think there really wasn't anyone that actually had a full Primaris army and only one other person that really wanted one. Maybe some were drawn to the OP rules, but I suspect more were drawn to some aesthetic that Indomitus brought. Becuase I am sure there will be more Necron players. I know there will be more space marine players.

Funny thing is I'd probably start one if they weren't so ridiculous.

They have a great model line, especially some of their cool dreadnaughts (normal and FW).

But I also want a tactical war game. It's not really tactical when you feel like you're cheating at every turn.

 Nalim wrote:
Since 9th edition it starts to feel like an uphill battle again (I don't play Salamanders or Iron Hands), but perhaps that's because I face a lot of Chaos lists. Yes, I know it's kind of modern to whine about marines, but truth is, they're far from being top dog atm.

Perhaps some local metas just haven't adjusted to the later PA books. Right now, I see chaos lists with AAA-units like Obliterators or Noise Marines that can't be targetted by me unless they are the nearest unit (Stratagem) and kill a significant chunk of my army each turn (Stratagems).

Yeah, yeah, Eradicators are OP, bla-bla, I get it. But they (and other SM units) can't be made untargettable and they can't shoot twice with a plethora of buffs. It's not like I'm frustrated about that, I like hard games. What I'm frustrated about is that lots of people seem to have missed what some (non SM-) factions can do nowadays and just go on whining and calling for nerfs.

Salamanders can also make something untargetable, although it is far more restrictive then the AL or DG strat.

But to the OPs point, I dread the new codex. I've been a salamanders player since 5th ed and it's my only army (I don't want to sink the time or money into another, and I've always been a fan of heavy infantry). This new primaris wave really does feel like a Marine +1. I know the points aren't out yet, but with heavy intercessors, eradicators, and the new land speeders - it just seems so over the top.

The heavy intercessors seem like the worst offender currently. Lets make firstborn 2 wounds and a little more expensive, okay fine - I guess (Although I still have reservations about this). Then lets make these 3W T5 Obsec units that are also perfectly kitted out to kill those units and have an HB that is better in every way. Need something to keep those firstborn terminators in check eh? Like, I just don't understand any possible gameplay logic in these units. They aren't good for gameplay health. This isn't even going to the fact that even as a marine play I'm not going to be able to remember all these names. In some other thread it was mentioned that there are now somewhere around 32 different bolt-weapons. Why? Before the supplements dropped I was able to remember pretty much every relevant rule and wargear piece. The supplements put a heavy strain on that, but now with the new codex how the hell am I supposed to remember all of these? Or even worse, how is my Opponent supposed to remember the difference between a heavy bolter, heavy bolt rifle, Executor heavy bolter, hellstorm Heavy bolter... etc.,

I'll still keep my eyes open, and things may change - but I am not hopeful right now.

Marines are really good. Still haven't lost to them yet this edition though.

So instead of creating new units and innovating with new units and rules you want GW to just throw in the towel? Also what is " gameplay health " ? Gameplay is setting up your models on the table, rolling the dice, and following the rules. Please tell us about this new definition you have created called " gameplay health " and what does it entail? Health is a term used for living breathing people/animals that are actually alive, not plastic models...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nalim wrote:
They aren't good for gameplay health.

Well, the only meta I care about is 8-15 people. We can field a fair amount forces & don't have any qualms about playing mirror matches, Imperium vs Imperium, or one another (no matter what was brought). And if someone new joins & all they've got is some flavor of Marines? So be it. We'll play them too.
Whatever shows up is fine.

people realize BTW that the heavy bolter on heavy intercessors is a "one per squad" weapon right? (honest question as I didn't notice that immediatly, I'm too used to primaris not having that option)

 Alwrath wrote:
So instead of creating new units and innovating with new units and rules you want GW to just throw in the towel? Also what is " gameplay health " ? Gameplay is setting up your models on the table, rolling the dice, and following the rules. Please tell us about this new definition you have created called " gameplay health " and what does it entail? Health is a term used for living breathing people/animals that are actually alive, not plastic models...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nalim wrote:
They aren't good for gameplay health.

Think of 40K design space as an ecosystem. Marines are taking more than their fair share of the resources/design space of the ecosystem, gobbling up army traits that used to be the defining traits of other factions, as well as increasing in stats in a way that puts them well above previous level of inter-factional model-to-model balance.

"How do Space Marine players feel about the Meta", you ask?

I've not really noticed much of a difference at all. I'm not seeing anyone rush out to buy a Space Marine army and jump on this Space Marine bandwagon.

Are some people griping about Space Marine rules? Yeah, it's the guy that "quit playing after 3rd" but follows every single thing that GW releases religiously and won't go away, he just hangs around to whine.

Most people are still playing their armies, learning what makes them effective with the new rules, and having a pretty good time when they can get games in.

All this 'meta' talk sounds kinda silly, considering most of the globe has COVID-19 restrictions. I've always had a theory about the hardest complainers about a game being people who don't frequently play, and this isn't helping my opinion.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Are some people griping about Space Marine rules? Yeah, it's the guy that "quit playing after 3rd" but follows every single thing that GW releases religiously and won't go away, he just hangs around to whine.
. . .I've always had a theory about the hardest complainers about a game being people who don't frequently play, and this isn't helping my opinion.

There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

 charz wrote:
Now that Space Marine 40,000 is set in stone for the forseeable future, how do you Marine players feel? I ask because my local meta has become mirror matches of marines, or non marine players playing each other.

I’ve played way too long to believe anything in 40K is set in stone for long.

Now that smol marines are here to stay and further

Yeah I don’t buy that either.

models and buffs are coming out, do you all have problems finding games?

Yeah but it’s the same COViD meta, not the 40K meta.

Again to touch on the "nobody plays against Marines except Marines" comment, this is across the board, except the highschool kid we have. This is before your smol marines where known not to be legened bound.

I see this becoming worse as time goes on, I know marines are not winning every tournament, but after looking at the obviously weaker Necron codex coming, are any of you experiencing the double edged sword of being the most powerful and common faction?

The interesting thing about the current marine dominance is that it's more at the casual level than the competitive level. I mean don't get me wrong, Salamanders are probably the strongest faction right now. But it's not nearly as bad as, say, Iron Hands were. There are multiple competitive non-space-marine lists that can challenge marines.

But that's the issue: there are multiple lists, not multiple armies. You can engineer a super competitive list that can challenge marines. But what you can't really do is just take a bunch of random models of another faction and go up against a bunch of random space marine models.

Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. For example, why do space marines not only get their faction rules on their entire army, but also doctrines and super doctrines, whereas the chaos space marine variants get inferior faction rules that only apply to certain units, with no doctrines or super doctrines? There is no good balance reason for things to be set up this way, and it makes even not particularly powerful space marine units competitive compared to the less powerful choices in other armies.

This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

Ironically, ideally it'd be great if every faction was like space marines and could take random junk and be good. But that's not how the game is right now. Which means you have one faction that roflstomps in less competitive play. And that's a big problem for a game where the vast majority of players are not particularly competitive, but who still want a game without a predetermined outcome.

IMO the biggest concern is that GW has been unwilling to put out any sort of statement acknowledging the frustrations people are feeling. Because if GW doesn't think there's an issue, there's unlikely to be anything done to fix it.

We have to hope that GW is unwilling to say anything because it doesn't want to suppress sales, but that the new codex is actually going to nerf the generically powerful parts of marines. But that's putting a lot of faith in a company that hasn't generally repaid that faith in the past.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Are some people griping about Space Marine rules? Yeah, it's the guy that "quit playing after 3rd" but follows every single thing that GW releases religiously and won't go away, he just hangs around to whine.

I know one guy like that. Ironically, he's not someone sick of the Marines; he's our Salamanders Hipster who hasn't played between 3rd and 9th but was, I guess, writing fluff for them or something since well before they became the most broken thing since Humpty Dumpty smashed a mirror with a Thunder Hammer. He tried to convince us that they weren't broken until he actually played a game.

All this 'meta' talk sounds kinda silly, considering most of the globe has COVID-19 restrictions. I've always had a theory about the hardest complainers about a game being people who don't frequently play, and this isn't helping my opinion.

A lot of gaming happens over Tabletop Simulator, which is a functional way to play, if harder to paint models with. It's great for getting to try a variety of forces without getting the plague, though! You learn things.

-Sometimes these are rudimentary, like precisely why matched play doesn't allow your Endless Cacophanying Prescienced Plasma Terminators to deep strike on Turn 1
-Rough Riders are hilarious with their pony gas masks, but last about as long as you'd expect actual ponies to last on a 42nd millenium battlefield
-Holy Balls, Keepers of Secrets are nuts, and a single Fiend of Slaanesh on one wound humping a Rhino that apparently finds it smells too alluring to drive away from, that can win you the game
-JESUS WHY ARE SALAMANDERS FLAMESTORM AGGRESSORS WITH LONG RANGE MARKSMEN, WHO LET THAT THROUGH QA

yukishiro1 wrote:
Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

We recently ran a series of 'test' games with Chaos Marines sporting 2x wounds base. There was obviously a point disparity, though I'm not sure how it was calculated or what the calculations were based on- we just rolled with it. The other factions we were playing did quite well, but there was a notable improvement with Chaos Marines.

However, one of the most competitive players we know runs Admech and Guard, and he's still entirely capable of crushing everything.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Are some people griping about Space Marine rules? Yeah, it's the guy that "quit playing after 3rd" but follows every single thing that GW releases religiously and won't go away, he just hangs around to whine.
. . .I've always had a theory about the hardest complainers about a game being people who don't frequently play, and this isn't helping my opinion.

There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but put about 8 or so people on ignore, and all these threads go effectively silent.
Its pretty remarkable.

Voss wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Are some people griping about Space Marine rules? Yeah, it's the guy that "quit playing after 3rd" but follows every single thing that GW releases religiously and won't go away, he just hangs around to whine.
. . .I've always had a theory about the hardest complainers about a game being people who don't frequently play, and this isn't helping my opinion.

There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but put about 8 or so people on ignore, and all these threads go effectively silent.
Its pretty remarkable.

28 unique posters in this thread and it has not even filled two pages yet.

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

That's been a consistent problem with GW for decades. Since their rules are so bad and so much of the game is decided at the listbuilding stage, themain way to have control over your army's performance on the table is to cheat.

Dakka posters upset with balance, Army A and Army B are OP and just stupid, examples of no one playing anymore...............hmmm, it must be Tuesday.......well the same Tuesday as 20 years ago when everyone was doing the same thing.

Every year, every addition, every faction.

Hard to judge my local meta since every store is closed due to COVID, but my group of friends (2 of whom have marine armies) and I have found ways to get a few games in since 9th launched.

We've been playing AoS instead.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

I dunno about lying, but I see a LOOOOT of mathhammer and not a lot of discussions on actual experiance. Mathhammer tends to be a bit odd because it misses certain things. like the battle reps with the Orks earlier, most mathhammer people ignore the fact that access to large amounts of cheap bodies gives a an advantage on objectives

Hecaton wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

That's been a consistent problem with GW for decades. Since their rules are so bad and so much of the game is decided at the listbuilding stage, themain way to have control over your army's performance on the table is to cheat.

That is a good point. The degree of tolerance and apathy for cheating at tournaments is truly shocking.

 Nalim wrote:

Yeah, yeah, Eradicators are OP, bla-bla, I get it. But they (and other SM units) can't be made untargettable and they can't shoot twice with a plethora of buffs. It's not like I'm frustrated about that, I like hard games. What I'm frustrated about is that lots of people seem to have missed what some (non SM-) factions can do nowadays and just go on whining and calling for nerfs.

Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Well for one, I don't trust meta narratives, not anymore, especially with how editions go. Things can change easily on the dime.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Well for one, I don't trust meta narratives, not anymore, especially with how editions go. Things can change easily on the dime.

You changed it, you editing Scoundrel! Ah, well. Point below still stands.

GW is gonna do what GW does. And Space Marines are their #1 seller, because if they weren't? They wouldn't have had more success in the last few years than they've ever had before.

Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

I always thought Necrons were 'cool', but never really played them. I was about to sell off my Necrons from my boxed set for next to nothing, because there weren't enough people that wanted them. However, someone came along and showed me how to use them and helped me build them, and I'm attached... and I've spent a good chunk of change building them up.

You know, I got people to take an interest in Chaos Marines/Daemons in my local area. Wanna know how? I kitbashed 12 unique Marines out of the Chaos Kits and a few other things (9 traitor legions, Fallen, Warp Ghosts, Red Corsairs) and put them up in the FLGS. I started running a narrative "Blackstone Fortress, Kinda" game with Chaos Marine 'heroes'. We couldn't keep Chaos Marines in stock.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Well for one, I don't trust meta narratives, not anymore, especially with how editions go. Things can change easily on the dime.

You changed it, you editing Scoundrel! Ah, well. Point below still stands.

GW is gonna do what GW does. And Space Marines are their #1 seller, because if they weren't? They wouldn't have had more success in the last few years than they've ever had before.

Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

I always thought Necrons were 'cool', but never really played them. I was about to sell off my Necrons from my boxed set for next to nothing, because there weren't enough people that wanted them. However, someone came along and showed me how to use them and helped me build them, and I'm attached... and I've spent a good chunk of change building them up.

You know, I got people to take an interest in Chaos Marines/Daemons in my local area. Wanna know how? I kitbashed 12 unique Marines out of the Chaos Kits and a few other things (9 traitor legions, Fallen, Warp Ghosts, Red Corsairs) and put them up in the FLGS. I started running a narrative "Blackstone Fortress, Kinda" game with Chaos Marine 'heroes'. We couldn't keep Chaos Marines in stock.

man I kinda wish I was in your area now!

BrianDavion wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

I dunno about lying, but I see a LOOOOT of mathhammer and not a lot of discussions on actual experiance. Mathhammer tends to be a bit odd because it misses certain things. like the battle reps with the Orks earlier, most mathhammer people ignore the fact that access to large amounts of cheap bodies gives a an advantage on objectives

Except flukes happen. Every other big tournament has the odd list that stands out and people flock to it and say "pLaYeR sKiLl". However, those results aren't replicated with high success. It's a one and done situation that's cute and all but it doesn't help the case you make.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Remember: one Ork player won a tournament via making a timer run out. Was that from the army being good?

BrianDavion wrote:


man I kinda wish I was in your area now!

Sorry, we rake leaves around here. Go suck maple syrup out of a tree, Canuck

Dude- the best advice I can give to you is this: Don't wish for the community you want, make it. You can get things off the ground with two friends backing you up. Do your thing, let people watch, tell 'em about it.

Yeah- one thing I did? I spent a good chunk of change getting a bunch of CSM kits (Marines, Havocs, etc.) and various things from Forge World like helmets, shoulderpads, weapons, etc. I built up the torsos, threw a lot of the bits in a box, added in some various pouches, holsters, knives, grenades, skulls, whatever little bits I could find from everything... and when someone wanted to play? I said, "Hey, sit down and build you a dude, then. You can keep him, if you want- he's your dude."

People start looking into warbands, paint schemes, backgrounds. It creates buzz. People get excited. Pretty soon the guy that once thought of Chaos Marines as generic spiky villains? Well, now he's coming in with an army he's stoked for. Now he's going bananas with insane kitbashes and making stuff you'd never think possible.

So far, my favorite has been the Defiler with the turret from the Repulsor Executioner.

ohh my community's perfectly good just what you're doing sounds so much fun.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

I dunno about lying, but I see a LOOOOT of mathhammer and not a lot of discussions on actual experiance. Mathhammer tends to be a bit odd because it misses certain things. like the battle reps with the Orks earlier, most mathhammer people ignore the fact that access to large amounts of cheap bodies gives a an advantage on objectives

True. Mathhammer is a useful tool but it isn't a substitute for playing.

Mathammer is also just way, way easier to convey a "fact", than going on about an experience you had on the table. Math is nice and concrete, and more importantly on a forum, for better or for worse, you can't argue against the math itself unless the actual calculations are wrong. The debate becomes more about the meaning of the numbers within the context of a game, and the context is nebulous because there's way more variables in the context of games.

Actual "tactics" discussions tend to be harder because it's a conversation with a higher requirement for two people to actually work together to reach an understanding.

But @AD
Just because people are bad at analyzing 40K (or come to different conclusions than you) doesn't automatically mean they're lying. Since you acknowledge that different "metas" is a thing, that means people can have drastically experiences with the game. Assuming that a story that doesn't line up with your experience is automatically coming from a lie is. . . I'd say that says more about you than it does about them.

Also, some people just genuinely suck at 40K. I've seen people who really don't get it, and probably never will. Their experience of "balance" is going to be veeeery different.

A bunch of recent complaints are not actually about army balance (which is about winning games) but about model balance (which isn't about overall victory, but about how individual models compare to one another).

I'm not saying all complaints are legitimate, but lumping space marine gripers into liars and non-players? Yeah. . . right.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

nekooni wrote:
On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

I have to say this does not match my personal experience.

I use Intercessors, Slam Captains, Relic Condemptor, Aggressors, Outriders and Eradicators and my games feel balanced enough if my opponent isn't completly new to their army or the game.
How many checkboxes did I tick with my unit selection?

Am I the worst Marine player maybe because I can't kick all the NPCs off the board by 2nd turn max? Or *gasp* my opponents have fun as well and ask me for more games afterwards?

BrianDavion wrote:
those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

What's really awkward is that if you fire Eradicators at Ork Boys, you're getting a pretty similar point-efficiency as Intercessors firing Bolt Rifles at them. So bringing Eradicators isn't really a loss against Boyz from a shooting standpoint.

12 bolt rifle shots is 3.99 dead Orks. 6 Melta Rifle shots is 3.3. (no Rerolls, no Doctrines). You're only giving up a small amount of anti-Boyz firepower for an insane amount of AT firepower.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Yeah at the same target. But we're talking about a cheap 3 man squad with 3 melta shots that typically aren't enough to kill a tank. They may not even even kill an ork buggy or dread with a single volley: two hits, wounding on 3s and maybe just one shot goes through saves. With double tap they'll pretty much guarantee a kill.

It's not like they'll overkill stuff, their firing twice ability is a huge buff for a unit with their stats.

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

I honestly can see 40k returning to rock paper scissors again a little. All the fuss about eradicators is because people wrote off hordes because of blast, then nobody takes blast weapons.

It'd be nice for a while not to have a clear list/army that's the best because an off meta army can challenge them like a horde list.

So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I don't think they would. I think those were removed for the sake of easier bookeeping in the same way that Combi-weapons went to multi-use.

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I'll have a skeg through my white dwarf for hints over lunch, I can see them.maybe being just a keyword now to trigger strats/abilities.

 Insectum7 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I don't think they would. I think those were removed for the sake of easier bookeeping in the same way that Combi-weapons went to multi-use.

would it really be that hard? it's be effectively a once per game strat.

 Insectum7 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

I dunno about lying, but I see a LOOOOT of mathhammer and not a lot of discussions on actual experiance. Mathhammer tends to be a bit odd because it misses certain things. like the battle reps with the Orks earlier, most mathhammer people ignore the fact that access to large amounts of cheap bodies gives a an advantage on objectives

True. Mathhammer is a useful tool but it isn't a substitute for playing.

Mathammer is also just way, way easier to convey a "fact", than going on about an experience you had on the table. Math is nice and concrete, and more importantly on a forum, for better or for worse, you can't argue against the math itself unless the actual calculations are wrong. The debate becomes more about the meaning of the numbers within the context of a game, and the context is nebulous because there's way more variables in the context of games.

Actual "tactics" discussions tend to be harder because it's a conversation with a higher requirement for two people to actually work together to reach an understanding.

But @AD
Just because people are bad at analyzing 40K (or come to different conclusions than you) doesn't automatically mean they're lying. Since you acknowledge that different "metas" is a thing, that means people can have drastically experiences with the game. Assuming that a story that doesn't line up with your experience is automatically coming from a lie is. . . I'd say that says more about you than it does about them.

Also, some people just genuinely suck at 40K. I've seen people who really don't get it, and probably never will. Their experience of "balance" is going to be veeeery different.

A bunch of recent complaints are not actually about army balance (which is about winning games) but about model balance (which isn't about overall victory, but about how individual models compare to one another).

I'm not saying all complaints are legitimate, but lumping space marine gripers into liars and non-players? Yeah. . . right.

Yeah. To use a recent example, when discussing why Howling Banshees are just..not a very good unit, you run into a ton of people saying stuff like

"oh it only matters who gets the charge, if the banshees get the charge they'll kill marines!"

or

"oh you're just talking about 150 points of banshees fighting 200 points of marines, of course they're gonna lose"

or

"you're only looking at the round where the marines get Shock Assault, after the first round the marines will lose!"

The best way to tackle something like that is breaking out a bit of a mathammer comparison. Saying "ok, so let's look at this 160 point unit of banshees against this 160 point unit of 8 intercessors, we'll give the banshees the charge, and see how they do on average, and then we'll compare them to the same performance of an equal point unit of Shining Spears"

You use math to demonstrate the specific point, while setting the tactical situation to be as normal as possible: Intercessors are likely to be the front line of a marine army. Banshees and Spears have the same or very similar charge threat range. The banshees and spears are likely to be able to charge across the board and hit the closest thing in the marine player's army, and those units are likely to behave like this or that.

Mathhammer provides a way to respond to a general, vague claim with slightly more proof. It isn't the be-all-end-all and you need to do more rigorous effort than a lot of people on the forum do to make sure that your scenario is semi-realistic and doesn't rely on stuff that just would not happen.

To go back to the same example, the strength change to Power Swords means that, theoretically, the same Howling Banshees unit can defeat equivalent points of Intercessors in melee, but that hinges on the person playing the intercessors just deciding not to Fall Back with them the following turn. That's a pretty unrealistic assumption to make about any melee-oriented unit fighting any shooting-oriented unit, where the expected default response once the game rolls around to the defender's turn is that theyll have more efficient ways to kill the melee-oriented unit with the rest of their army's shooting than with melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Hilariously, Erads are not actually all that inefficient at shooting boyz. They get nearly the same points return that Intercessors in Rapid Fire do.

And typically, from what I'm seeing in competitive lists, usually you fill your HS slot with erads, and then you just handle infantry with Troops and Elites. A couple squads of Salamander rules Aggressors is plenty to take care of the potential problem of Boyz.

the_scotsman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?

It wasn't anything like what you think of today.

You got to use each one once per game, you could use each twice if you made a specific style of list. They had a minor boost, then a bigger boost for matching units i.e. Tactical was a shooting minor reroll, and Tac Squads could reroll all, Assault Doctrine helped any charge, and gave fight-based units - i.e. Assault Squads, Bikes and such - one of the old USR's generally better than the charge range helper.

Edit to Add, I can't remember, but I think it started as the UM Chapter mojo in 6th, then expanded to everyone in 7th.

Dudeface wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I'll have a skeg through my white dwarf for hints over lunch, I can see them.maybe being just a keyword now to trigger strats/abilities.

Right, I've looked through the WD battle report for marine hints and got the following:

Rites of War warlord trait: all <core> units get obsec within 6" of warlord.
Know no fear agenda: pass a morale test, get exp
"When the marines got into my lines and moved to assault doctrine they were brutal" - doctrines still present in some capacity

Breton wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?

It wasn't anything like what you think of today.

You got to use each one once per game, you could use each twice if you made a specific style of list. They had a minor boost, then a bigger boost for matching units i.e. Tactical was a shooting minor reroll, and Tac Squads could reroll all, Assault Doctrine helped any charge, and gave fight-based units - i.e. Assault Squads, Bikes and such - one of the old USR's generally better than the charge range helper.

Edit to Add, I can't remember, but I think it started as the UM Chapter mojo in 6th, then expanded to everyone in 7th.

in the the ultramarines chapter tactic in 6th and 7th. IF however you ran a gladius, you'd get access to one of each. effectively doubling the doctrines Ultramarines got, and giving all the other chapters essentially UM chapter tactics for free.
No one noticed it because honestly it wasn't THAAAT great. it was potentially useful if used in the right circumstances, but not game breaking. people. (for obvious reasons) focused more on the gladius battle company's free transports. But yeah doctrines in 6th and 7th where pretty weak

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

That's what aggressors are there for. Elite slot. Same with relic contemptors and long range firepower. Elite slot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:

Am I the worst Marine player maybe because I can't kick all the NPCs off the board by 2nd turn max? Or *gasp* my opponents have fun as well and ask me for more games afterwards?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say,but I don't have any issues finding people to play with repeatedly. My whole point was that it sucks that balance is so bad I have to tone down my lists most of the time so it's a decently balanced match and everyone involved has fun.

I make it a point to exchange lists way before we meet so the lists can be well matched,and if I know someone's more of a laid back gamer I'll build to that right from the start.
Same with competitive players, I'll try to build something that'll be a challenge for them.

I don't stricktly play marines, but I do play a lot against them. There seem to be a lot of different marines armies, with different units with them, people, which includes me, seem to be having a lot of fun. Games don't end turn 2, there are problems with huge buffs to going first and some specific rules that work against specific armies, but all in all 9th ed is awesome comparing to 8th ed. It is even worth the 2 hour trip to new store.

Karol wrote:
I don't stricktly play marines, but I do play a lot against them. There seem to be a lot of different marines armies, with different units with them, people, which includes me, seem to be having a lot of fun. Games don't end turn 2, there are problems with huge buffs to going first and some specific rules that work against specific armies, but all in all 9th ed is awesome comparing to 8th ed. It is even worth the 2 hour trip to new store.

Don't get me wrong, when I gripe about balance I mean the points values and stuff like that. The game itself is WAY better than 8th as it's less focussed on killing. I just wish they had put more effort into the Field Manual and balance in general. And sounds like you have a community now that's working well for you, glad to hear that!

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

Hecaton wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

Also I love how much this comes up again and again, but GW just recently did their whole barely-veiled "we have so much warehouse overstock please just let us sell you mystery boxes at cost so they don't build up overhead" thing and what was in those boxes?

Box a: Knight, space marine unit X5
Box b: Arco-flagellants, Electropriests, Space Marine Unit X7

brand spanking new primaris characters galore right alongside clearly super popular models such as "old space marine bikers" and "Fenrisian Wolves"

Yeah those must be sellin like HOTCAKESSSSSSSSS.

Hecaton wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

are you saying space marines get tons of new stuff because all their stuff isn't selling? really?

... thats not how busniesses work.

I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

Technically I added a bunch of Primaris, but I did it through all the boxed sets as Primaris was releasing, and kept the other halves for other armies. So I spent some, but got extra. I was going to say I don't care if FirstBorn stay or go, but I wish they'd just get it over with, I'm kind of tired of the "will they or won't they" like it's some sort of Prime Time TV drama romantic story arc, but that's not really true, I'll be somewhat annoyed when/if my SM collection lost half or more of it's playable models.

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

even if you play cheap you've proably got a ton of primaris Marines.

assuming you didn't buy any independantly packed units and simply purchased stuff that came out in boxed sets you'll have by now (I'm assuming a single dark Imperium purchase and no purchase of know no fear) you'd have primaris wise...

From DI:
10 intercssors, 5 hell blasters, 3 inceptors, 1 ancient, 1 captain, 2 lts.

From Tooth and Claw:
1 Space Wolf Leuitenant, 5 intercessors, 3 agressors and a redemptor

From Wake the Dead:
1 Leuitenant, 5 intercessors, 3 inceptors, 5 reivers

From Shadowspear:
1 Phobos Captain, 1 Phobos Lt. 1 Phobos Libby, 10 Infiltrators, 3 eliminators, 3 supressors


And I'll skip prophecy of the wolf as IMHO it wasn't the greatest deal from a Marine POV.


All told if you simply bought the discounted battleboxes in 8th edition you'd have

20 Intercessors, 5 Hellblasters, 6 inceptors, 3 Agressors, 5 Reivers, a Redemptor Dreadnought, 10 Infiltrators, 3 eliminators, 3 supressors, 2 Captains, 5 Leuitenants, 1 Ancient, 1 Librairan


All told, if you bought all of the discount boxes in 8th edition. and thats the only primaris you have, you own 2060 points worth of primaris Marines... 380 points of which is in Primaris Leuitenants

not that I expect people to have bought ALL the boxes but figured it was fun to do the math

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

Are you joking? The cheapest way to play marines is almost certainly buying big boxed sets where you get like 600pts of stuff for 240$ then selling the non-marine half on ebay.

Yeah,the only expensive parts of a primaris force are the vehicles and unique characters, pretty much anything else is dirt cheap if you just grab the models from the big boxes. Sure, you don't get all the optios, but that's not a big deal - most people can't tell if those guns are the assault or the rapid fire version anyway.

BrianDavion wrote:
those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Dude, three Eradicators kill 3.33 Boyz on average. Six Intercessors kill 2 on average at long range, 4 at short range. Eradicators are significantly more points-efficient than Intercessors at killing Boyz outside of 15", and are nearly as good inside of 15". You can face an army of entirely chaff and the Eradicators are still damned good- and even in your example, having one unit get the 4 wounds in on Ghaz is a good role for them.

Plus you still have your Elites slots open to take Aggressors for anti-horde and Contemptors for long-range fire support, so it's not like the Heavy Support slot is your only source of firepower.

Plus for a whopping 2CP you can take a Patrol to get some more slots, or 3CP for a Battalion. You're Marines, your HQs and Troops are good, it's a very low tax to get all the HS slots you need.

Slot-based limits are not a good balancing factor. If the only significant negative thing you can say about a unit is that it takes up a slot, chances are it's OP.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Good lord, you know it's desperate when the argument for Eradicators being fair is now 'if your tank gets one-shotted because it has the temerity to exist, it's your fault for bringing a tank'.

 catbarf wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Dude, three Eradicators kill 3.33 Boyz on average. Six Intercessors kill 2 on average at long range, 4 at short range. Eradicators are significantly more points-efficient than Intercessors at killing Boyz outside of 15",

Most Intercessors will be standing still, wouldn't they making them good to 30"

and are nearly as good inside of 15". You can face an army of entirely chaff and the Eradicators are still damned good- and even in your example, having one unit get the 4 wounds in on Ghaz is a good role for them.

Plus you still have your Elites slots open to take Aggressors for anti-horde and Contemptors for long-range fire support, so it's not like the Heavy Support slot is your only source of firepower.

Plus for a whopping 2CP you can take a Patrol to get some more slots, or 3CP for a Battalion. You're Marines, your HQs and Troops are good, it's a very low tax to get all the HS slots you need.

Slot-based limits are not a good balancing factor. If the only significant negative thing you can say about a unit is that it takes up a slot, chances are it's OP.

It takes up a third of your slots the same slots your own tanks and transports generally come from. And they;re 3 and only 3 (but that's more of a personal pet peeve). 3 MM Devs and 2 Basic bodies is 135. 3 Eradicators isn't that far out of sync. If 2W was the reason for the CA2020 price hike, its even less so.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Good lord, you know it's desperate when the argument for Eradicators being fair is now 'if your tank gets one-shotted because it has the temerity to exist, it's your fault for bringing a tank'.

You ought to try pointing out Land Raiders are unlikely to be "good" any time soon.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

We recently ran a series of 'test' games with Chaos Marines sporting 2x wounds base. There was obviously a point disparity, though I'm not sure how it was calculated or what the calculations were based on- we just rolled with it. The other factions we were playing did quite well, but there was a notable improvement with Chaos Marines.

However, one of the most competitive players we know runs Admech and Guard, and he's still entirely capable of crushing everything.

That always seems to be the case, there are a guy or two in any given group that demolish everyone else they play no matter what faction they favor. Our local top dog plays Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, or Deathguard depending on his mood, I've never beaten his IG or his DG even with Iron Hands at their most broken.

The Newman wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

We recently ran a series of 'test' games with Chaos Marines sporting 2x wounds base. There was obviously a point disparity, though I'm not sure how it was calculated or what the calculations were based on- we just rolled with it. The other factions we were playing did quite well, but there was a notable improvement with Chaos Marines.

However, one of the most competitive players we know runs Admech and Guard, and he's still entirely capable of crushing everything.

That always seems to be the case, there are a guy or two in any given group that demolish everyone else they play no matter what faction they favor. Our local top dog plays Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, or Deathguard depending on his mood, I've never beaten his IG or his DG even with Iron Hands at their most broken.

Part of the equation is, assertions of the power of an army assume a lot of different things.

1) The player in question is playing the most powerful version of that army available
2) the player in question knows exactly what rules to use from that army to make them the most powerful
3) their opponent is randomly selected and fielding a list that is in no way tailored against the powerful army

In practice, in local games, none of those three are commonly true, at least in my experience.

People who know they'll be going up against the current hotness are more likely to be bringing their "a game" lists and loading up on counter-units to that potent army, even if they don't know precisely what their opponent will be bringing.

And people who play armies that happen to get buffed through the stratosphere very rarely have the EXACT combination of powerful units that the internet loves to complain about.

part of the reason that the space marine dominance of 2.0 was so massive was because of a few unusual factors. first, many of the units that marine players were already taking in their competitive lists (Smash captains, Leviathan Dreadnoughts, Chaplain Dreadnoughts, Thunderfires, Eliminators) were among the units elevated to god-tier by 2.0. Second, many of the units that were newly strong were units that many people had from the various starter boxes of the game, mostly the Intercessors that many people got in Dark Imperium.

The tyranny of 7th ed eldar was immediately apparent to everyone conceptually upon reading their rules, but the competitive meta eldar list prior to the 7th ed codex was wave serpents filled with dire avenger squads. The 7th ed meta list became Scatter Laser Jetbikes (a brand new unit) and Wraithknights. People who wanted the new hotness actualy had to go out and buy the new stuff. Other competitive lists throughout 8th relied on people having massively skewed extremely expensive lists overnight, like 20 hand flamer acolytes (a unit that costs 400$ to build since you can only get hand flamers out of the plastic kit) or 6 hive tyrants with wings and a wargear combination that doesnt come in the kit, or dozens of tau shield drones, an option that prior to the codex was terrible and you can't buy separately.

I'll be the first to admit that this was just unfortunate happenstance. The most popular faction immediately became the strongest, using the units that everybody already had and was fielding, leading to a massive string of extremely imbalanced games.

Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Azuza001 wrote:
Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Question...how does one use a "Harrassment unit" in a game of 9th edition?

The only units I would class as such in my own gameplay would be ultra-cheap chaff infantry units and characters, in which the 'harrassment' generally takes the form of forcing an opponent to target them to prevent them from scoring, or move around them, preventing expensive units from going where they want to go.

Banshees are neither durable nor inexpensive, nor do they deep strike. They are mobile, but not compared to vypers or windriders. They are less durable for the points vs shooting than almost anything else in the army. What do you use them for that you would call "useful harrassment"?

Dudeface wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

I honestly can see 40k returning to rock paper scissors again a little. All the fuss about eradicators is because people wrote off hordes because of blast, then nobody takes blast weapons.

It'd be nice for a while not to have a clear list/army that's the best because an off meta army can challenge them like a horde list.

it is why orks are doing pretty well right now honestly. if people come armed for space marines and then face a goff ork list led by ghaz and backed up by wagh banners painboys and such they are at an extreme disadvantage. inversely if you gear up for the ork list you lose to space marines (unless you are playing as space marines)... like cannot possibly win. I have marines (both chaos and normal including basically every faciton), all imperium and chaos armies, plus every xenos army but tyranids. This truly is the generalist edition so marines are shining stars.

I've played mainly GKs for the last two editions. Though I've dabbled in both chaos and IG as well.

I've only found problems at larger games. 2K pnts and up, and even then. It's a problem with unit balance and coaxing new players into the game.

 Oborosen wrote:
I've played mainly GKs for the last two editions. Though I've dabbled in both chaos and IG as well.

I've only found problems at larger games. 2K pnts and up, and even then. It's a problem with unit balance and coaxing new players into the game.

that is actually a really important distinction. its a very different and more balanced game in the 1k-1250 range imo. I think i prefer 1k point games they are fast, people bring interesting lists and its genuinely (subjectively) more fun.

 G00fySmiley wrote:


that is actually a really important distinction. its a very different and more balanced game in the 1k-1250 range imo. I think i prefer 1k point games they are fast, people bring interesting lists and its genuinely (subjectively) more fun.

Because of minimum point costs to SM, I have almost always preferred 2K+ games. My lists are almost always kitchen sink lists. I like to take a little of everything, and everything usually has a primary and secondary job, with every job having at least two units that can perform it. When 3 compulsory troops are roughly 60% of that 1,000 points, there’s no way you can fill out the rest of all those jobs once, let alone twice.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Oborosen wrote:
I've played mainly GKs for the last two editions. Though I've dabbled in both chaos and IG as well.

I've only found problems at larger games. 2K pnts and up, and even then. It's a problem with unit balance and coaxing new players into the game.

that is actually a really important distinction. its a very different and more balanced game in the 1k-1250 range imo. I think i prefer 1k point games they are fast, people bring interesting lists and its genuinely (subjectively) more fun.

I would like to play smaller point games more. It isn't very often I get a chance though. It is usually Kill Team or 2,000pts back when I could get games in. Plus, anytime someone suggested they wanted to play less than 2,000pts, I generally want to field my Genestealer Cult as I didn't have enough models ready before the pandemic to field a very good list at 2,000pts. I probably still don't as GSC have just seem to get harder and harder to play. I didn't get one opportunity to play at a 1,000pts with my Primaris. That was after bringing a 2,000pt list that I paired down to something like 900 points as I wasn't prepared for a smaller point game. Still was a lot of fun.

I definitely like playing two 1,000pt games over one 2,000pt game. Especially if both players have the ability to tweak/sideboard their list and the losing player of the first game is allowed to make some adjustments. That way it is possible both players to get a win for the day, or at very least, have a closer second game. Especially with me. It is getting somewhat know that playing me is like rolling a 1d20 for the first game. Sometimes I play at a crazy good level. Sometimes I am absolute trash. However, my second game has me at about half my ability. And any potential 3rd game is basically an easy win for my opponent. For a while, a player consistently better than me in my first game of the day would get a 3rd game in Kill Team, and I felt bad since every one of those games was like shooing fish in a barrel for him.

 catbarf wrote:

Plus for a whopping 2CP you can take a Patrol to get some more slots, or 3CP for a Battalion. You're Marines, your HQs and Troops are good, it's a very low tax to get all the HS slots you need.

Or just take a spearhead,as that's just as expensive as a battalion and you don't need to bring troops at all in your second detachment.

the_scotsman wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Question...how does one use a "Harrassment unit" in a game of 9th edition?

The only units I would class as such in my own gameplay would be ultra-cheap chaff infantry units and characters, in which the 'harrassment' generally takes the form of forcing an opponent to target them to prevent them from scoring, or move around them, preventing expensive units from going where they want to go.

Banshees are neither durable nor inexpensive, nor do they deep strike. They are mobile, but not compared to vypers or windriders. They are less durable for the points vs shooting than almost anything else in the army. What do you use them for that you would call "useful harrassment"?

So i normally run 3 squads of 5 in my games. 2 of them start on the board, with 1 getting quicken so they typically run across the table t1 and charge into something. The other is in position to help t2.

I deep strike a squad of 5 with the webway strat, and I play Beil Tan. This gives me access to court of the young king for +2 to charge. Also if i position stuff correctly I should have a warlock in range to give them ghost walk (additonal + to charge) so they get into cc from deep strike pretty easily.

I try to go on flanks, hitting a side seems safer than going up the middle. But my true goal is to hit a backfield unit that doesn't want to be in cc. Thunderfire cannon tech priests, a predator annihilatior, a dev squad, hellblasters, i hit whatever i can but aim for stuff that shutting down their shooting for 1 turn will help keep the rest of the army alive. Finally by blitzing on a flank like this I find that I can stall my opponents advance to mid board objectives, helping me "hold more" for a turn or 2 is vital.

I understand they are too expensive at this point for what I am using them for. My beil tan army went up 250 pts with this edition change (vs my white scar army going up 4....... thanks gw....) and it has taken a lot of bite from my list, but I am still able to put up a fight and win if I play smart. But I have to make sure everything has a job it can actually accomplish now, and banshees are my t1 / t2 harrassment unit that also can help grab engage on all fronts t1 and vs t3 targets (hi guard/ bye guard) are quite useful.

nekooni wrote:
Same with relic contemptors and long range firepower. Elite slot.

 catbarf wrote:
Plus you still have your Elites slots open to take Aggressors for anti-horde and Contemptors for long-range fire support, so it's not like the Heavy Support slot is your only source of firepower.

I like how people keep bringing broken, pay to win forge world garbage as ""marine"" units. Show me where it is in codex, THEN you can complain.

Maybe it will shock you, but most SM players aren't WAAACers spamming recasts from book most of 40K fans don't even know exists and if your argument against Eradicators is a strawman "why, if SM player has 15 OP FW dreads to compensate for wasting all his HS slots on one-dimensional unit" then it pretty much debunks it on the spot. So, thanks for conceding. And even if you spam said broken FW junk (including new tournament hotness, resin land speeders) SM currently don't even qualify as top 3 (or even arguably top 5) book, and that is with their best subfactions, not 7/10 marine armies hovering in 30-40% win range) so the whole complain was nonsense to begin with.

And I still like how people who were defending VASTLY more broken reapers and quad fusion suits as ToTeS BaLaNcEd GiT gUd are now complaining because SM lost bad army status they had for 2.8 editions - especially hilarious coming from Eldar and Tau players

It's not even necessarily that FW units are "pay to win . . . garbage". It's that GW, when they wrote the codex/supplements, just straight up didn't acknowledge that there were broken interactions with the new GAMES WORKSHOP (note--not Forgeworld) stratagems and relics.

The Leviathan was simply a good, top tier unit before codex 2.0 + iron hands supplement + psychic awakening. It's those supplements that turned it into a broken unit. Same with the Chaplain Dreadnought. I happen to own both of these, by the way, since I started building Iron Hands with a dreadnought themed army in mind years before the supplement was even known to exist. I have one of every dreadnought in that army, except the MKIV Ironclad, which I missed out on :(.

The main issue I see is that GW is giving out a TON of power via stratagems, relics, and warlord traits, and not just incorporating that power into datasheets where it can be more easily pointed.

Take the "chief apothecary", for instance. That should be a datasheet entry in the codex with an appropriate cost (and it sounds like GW is doing just that, thankfully).

I don't terribly mind "combo hammer", as it adds a layer of depth to the gameplay beyond simply maneuvering and rolling dice to wipe your opponent off the board. I do have a problem with certain stratagems VASTLY changing the value of certain units in certain factions. Another example is Salamanders and flamer Aggressors. The strat combos for that unit in Salamanders makes their offensive output insane vs their standard expected output. How can you properly point balance Aggressors so that they can be used in other factions? It was the same thing with Alaitoc flyers and ynnari shining spears etc, etc.

They need to tone down the stratagems and give the power back to the datasheets in ALL factions.

Well I'm still new to it, but I know I'll still play my elves, regardless of if they're weak. (heard that the Ynnari I've picked is pretty bad right now xD) But I just play to have fun and I love their theme, I don't really mind losing to be honest.

I did play an intro game with space marines and yeah, they felt pretty strong, but I can't really say much being inexperienced.

I'll still play my weaker lists against marine players, just so I can learn how to play properly and have a bit of fun for both of us haha

Dark Reapers haven't been overpowered ever since Index Xenos Ynnari. The only thing making them decent was double shoot from a psychic power and the magic box ITC rules.

Try actually using Reapers in a normal game of 9th and see how actually strong they are.

And making a statement that the only good stuff for Marines is FW and how they aren't a top 3 army would hold more weight if Marine armies were not consistently placing highly and winning tournaments with Codex and Indomitus units.

Hyperbole goes both ways and the insane lengths some Marine players will go to try and twist themselves in a knot to excuse imbalance is actually where a lot of resentment towards the army comes from. By comparison, no Eldar player ever said Ynnari Dark Reapers were fair or balanced. Everyone acknowledged they were busted.

That's the key difference between this period of Marine dominance and other periods of dominance. The refusal of some players to admit some stuff might be skewed a little.

Quasistellar wrote:
It's not even necessarily that FW units are "pay to win . . . garbage". It's that GW, when they wrote the codex/supplements, just straight up didn't acknowledge that there were broken interactions with the new GAMES WORKSHOP (note--not Forgeworld) stratagems and relics.

The Leviathan was simply a good, top tier unit before codex 2.0 + iron hands supplement + psychic awakening. It's those supplements that turned it into a broken unit. Same with the Chaplain Dreadnought. I happen to own both of these, by the way, since I started building Iron Hands with a dreadnought themed army in mind years before the supplement was even known to exist. I have one of every dreadnought in that army, except the MKIV Ironclad, which I missed out on :(.

The main issue I see is that GW is giving out a TON of power via stratagems, relics, and warlord traits, and not just incorporating that power into datasheets where it can be more easily pointed.

Take the "chief apothecary", for instance. That should be a datasheet entry in the codex with an appropriate cost (and it sounds like GW is doing just that, thankfully).

I don't terribly mind "combo hammer", as it adds a layer of depth to the gameplay beyond simply maneuvering and rolling dice to wipe your opponent off the board. I do have a problem with certain stratagems VASTLY changing the value of certain units in certain factions. Another example is Salamanders and flamer Aggressors. The strat combos for that unit in Salamanders makes their offensive output insane vs their standard expected output. How can you properly point balance Aggressors so that they can be used in other factions? It was the same thing with Alaitoc flyers and ynnari shining spears etc, etc.

They need to tone down the stratagems and give the power back to the datasheets in ALL factions.

You know what? I agree with this. Strats are an easy way to break things, and while I think they are useful in the end they are extremely easy to break and cause huge fluctuations in unit power. The flame Aggressor example is a good one, and i have a Salamanders army with 6 flame Aggressors in it. Its cool, but its also a bit op, but only when you also use the count as stationary strat so you are basically using 24 flamers there. Its oppressive without the stationary strat, but down right stupid with. Maybe they will get rid of the stationary strat in the new codex, who knows, but atm strats can make or break a unit.

Azuza001 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Question...how does one use a "Harrassment unit" in a game of 9th edition?

The only units I would class as such in my own gameplay would be ultra-cheap chaff infantry units and characters, in which the 'harrassment' generally takes the form of forcing an opponent to target them to prevent them from scoring, or move around them, preventing expensive units from going where they want to go.

Banshees are neither durable nor inexpensive, nor do they deep strike. They are mobile, but not compared to vypers or windriders. They are less durable for the points vs shooting than almost anything else in the army. What do you use them for that you would call "useful harrassment"?

So i normally run 3 squads of 5 in my games. 2 of them start on the board, with 1 getting quicken so they typically run across the table t1 and charge into something. The other is in position to help t2.

I deep strike a squad of 5 with the webway strat, and I play Beil Tan. This gives me access to court of the young king for +2 to charge. Also if i position stuff correctly I should have a warlock in range to give them ghost walk (additonal + to charge) so they get into cc from deep strike pretty easily.

I try to go on flanks, hitting a side seems safer than going up the middle. But my true goal is to hit a backfield unit that doesn't want to be in cc. Thunderfire cannon tech priests, a predator annihilatior, a dev squad, hellblasters, i hit whatever i can but aim for stuff that shutting down their shooting for 1 turn will help keep the rest of the army alive. Finally by blitzing on a flank like this I find that I can stall my opponents advance to mid board objectives, helping me "hold more" for a turn or 2 is vital.

I understand they are too expensive at this point for what I am using them for. My beil tan army went up 250 pts with this edition change (vs my white scar army going up 4....... thanks gw....) and it has taken a lot of bite from my list, but I am still able to put up a fight and win if I play smart. But I have to make sure everything has a job it can actually accomplish now, and banshees are my t1 / t2 harrassment unit that also can help grab engage on all fronts t1 and vs t3 targets (hi guard/ bye guard) are quite useful.

OK. That's how I'd use them as well, it's just that there's vastly better units in the Eldar arsenal for doing all those jobs that you're using the banshees for.

Scorpions deep strike for free, and with the scorpion's claw and Mandiblaster exarch trait deal more damage to almost everything on the charge. And Shining Spears are much tougher, much more damaging, and have exactly the same T1 threat range as a unit to sprint across the board and tie things up with 1 move, and more if you quicken them (24"+2d6" without fly vs 32" with fly)

Banshees have a job in the abstract, but can't really do any job better than their in-codex competitors. And S4 power swords doesn't fix that, just makes it slightly less embarrassing. Now the 110pts of shining spears just does twice as much damage as the 110pts of banshees instead of 4x against that predator you charged! They do still take 3x the firepower to remove, womp womp.

I agree there are other options that can do the same thing, shining spears being one of them. I dont care for scorpions, they may hit better but banshees being -1 to hit in cc can actually help keep them alive longer and i typically see the girls as extra wounds to keep the exarch alive.

But any way you cut it, aspect warriors as a whole are not that good anymore. :(

Azuza001 wrote:
I agree there are other options that can do the same thing, shining spears being one of them. I dont care for scorpions, they may hit better but banshees being -1 to hit in cc can actually help keep them alive longer and i typically see the girls as extra wounds to keep the exarch alive.

But any way you cut it, aspect warriors as a whole are not that good anymore. :(

Eh. -1 to hit is pretty much balanced out by +1sv for most competitors. Banshees are a wash durability-wise, and pay for their ability to move across the board and the AP-3 on their melee attacks. but in general in 9th deep strike is a more useful ability, because of the flexibility you have where you can either send a scorpion squad into melee, or you can drop them somewhere out of LOS and start performing an action.

regardless, we're comparing bad unit A with bad unit B.